Council preparing to select transit option before route

The City Council will likely vote to pick one of four mass-transit alternatives before the end of the year, but it could hold off voting on a route until later.

Four bills introduced at Council point in that direction.

"We want to finish most of this by the end of the year," Council Vice Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said. "The alignment may not be done until later ... but we need to at least start discussion on it."

A majority of councilmembers has introduced the bills setting up the process for the mass-transit selection before Mayor Mufi Hannemann has had a chance to make a recommendation.

The bills are coming after a nearly year-long federally mandated study examined four transit options. The administration is expected to make its recommendation next week.

"The city should tell the public what we are doing before the (new transit) tax kicks in" Jan. 1, said Councilman Charles Djou. "In order to make that deadline, we've got to start moving and introducing these things now."

The introduced measures:

» Bill 79 would select one of four transit alternatives: no new transit system, an enhanced bus system, a new high-occupancy-vehicle highway that would charge a toll to single- occupant vehicles, and rail transit. This bill specifies that the route and the transit technology will be decided in a separate piece of legislation.

» Bill 80 would select the technology that would be used to carry out the transit alternative. If rail is chosen, then the Council would select light rail, monorail, rapid rail or magnetic levitation.

» Bill 81 would select a route and transit stations.

» Bill 82 would set up the requirements for developing transit stations.

The Council takes up the bills tomorrow in the first of three votes.

Administration spokeswoman Bill Brennan said the administration could support the Council moving forward with Bills 79 and 81 at the same time if rail were chosen.

"Technically, if it's (rail), it has to have a route in order to qualify as a locally preferred alternative. You just can't say we've picked (rail) and that's the locally preferred alternative. Technically speaking and federally speaking ... there's no LPA without a route," he said.

Hannemann has said that if the administration recommends rail, it will also recommend a route.

He has also said he would like an initial rail segment to cost about $3 billion, which could mean a shorter route than the original one planned between Kapolei and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Some councilmembers have expressed frustration that the administration has not responded to their requests for information on transit developments.